White Wine » Italian White Wine

Italy’s wine growing history stretches back further than that of France and was awakened by the Greeks, as evidenced by the name of some of the country’s most ancient grape varieties: Greco and Grechetto.

Italy produces pretty much the same quantity of wine each year as France (i.e. they are 1st= in the volume stakes), sometimes more, sometimes less, dependant on vintage. Yet subject Italian wine is a much more complicated thing than its French equivalent, at least partially because of the Italian government’s confused attitude to the industry’s governing laws (especially since WWII) and also in part due to Italian wine producers’ propensity for making the wines they want to make, rather then the wine the law stipulates.

What we are left with is a vibrant, increasingly forward-looking country that, yes, is highly frustrating to the consumer wanting to expand his or her knowledge, but one that is also ultimately hugely rewarding. Here are produced some of the world’s greatest red wines (the Baroli and Barbaresci of Piemonte), some true classics in the form of the Brunellos and Chiantis of Tuscany (as well as the less well-known wines of the south (e.g. Taurasi; Aglianico del Vulture), plus truly great modern styles represented by those wines that used to be referred to as vini da tavola in Tuscany.

As for the whites, well, in a nutshell they have long been seen as Italy’s Achilles heel. Even the most died-in-the-wool “reddist” would admit that Friuli, near the border with Slovenia, produces excellent white wines. But everything else was seen as filler. Not so now! I am tasting a great many fascinating and characterful white wines from, yes, Friuli, but also from every region to its west and south, as far as Sardinia and Sicily in the south. There is much to enjoy: thrilling indigenous varieties carefully made from old vineyards.